Operation East Wind 7 March 8-16 2014

[Aswayze]

Specifically related to intel gathering and recon here is a follow on story:



After the previously mentioned night raid gone awry, I went out with a few other HQ guys supported by the Ferret armored car to conduct some light armored recon. We slid up to the edge of town in the famous Ferret run silent, run deep mode and I dismounted along with the cook to go have a lookie around town. We moved in hard and fast moving from cover to cover and quickly/quietly sweeping all the danger spots in town before signaling the Ferret to move up to a point where it could both provide some fire support if we encountered enemy troops moving up and also a rapid egress if needed.

After the fierce night fight, we had rightly assumed that the Soviets would probably bail out of town and all evidence seemed to indicate that they had peeled out of there prior to dawn. There were mags here and there that had obviously been missed in the dark and the general disarray in the East Germans position seemed to indicate that nobody had particularly "cleared" that spot before pulling out. The truck that picked the remaining troops up was small and traveling by itself with no dismounted escort so obviously there were not that many troops remaining in town when they lit out of there. We did not venture far tracking where it went, we just knew it went somewhere into East Germany as one would clearly expect.

From there we decided to go have a sneaky peek at several other likely border crossing points and look for signs of recent Soviet activity. This is not as easy as you would think since Oklahoma is mostly made of dust, flaming grass and rocks. None the less, with a little effort, we managed to track down some choke points that were damp and loamy enough to leave tracks and after a little skittering about happened upon what looked like actionable intel.



The above pic shows a section of the border we had code named "Dave". While not a likely avenue of approach, the road marked 25 on the map here did travel directly into NATO territory from somewhere in the deep dark communist forest and therefore could be used by enterprising vehicle drivers to get units moved up to the border. Several of us had long suspected that this was possible but many felt that the extremely steep and rocky hill leading up from the extremely steep and rocky valley 400 meters or so across the border from here would prevent vehicle traffic. When we arrived on scene, the cook and I again skirted the road forward up towards the hill and in a damp spot encountered a very narrow lug treaded tire track. Initially, we assumed it was from a motorbike but a little further down we encountered another spot that was soft enough to see the track width. It was something small, but definitely a 4x4 vehicle. Looking at the patterns of tracks, it had been moving slowly but had wandered a bit on the roadway often clipping some of the vegetation on the sides of the road in spite of it's small size. No signs of dismounted troops at all. The Ferret driver suggested leaving some squares of toilet paper in a few high traffic spots so we could tell when new tracks arrived then we gathered up all of our notes and slipped off to try to put together all the pieces.

Once safely back in camp, we sat down and tried to make sense of it all. Small vehicle, traveling erratically, on a rough minor road... We talked a bit about the other roads in the area and how this one was different (other than the obvious parts like the fact it starts, ends and goes to different locations) and the only thing we could come up with out of all of this is that this particular road was one of the few that traveled in an area almost completely bereft of light pollution. Most other roads had some silly ass farmer dusk to dawn light off in the distance flickering at you when you drive on them. Most of the NATO guys drive with Gen 2 night vision so this does not prove to be much of a hassle to them but as far as we knew, most of the Warsaw Pact driver night vision was either Gen 0 (Active IR) or Gen 1. Perhaps the Warsaw Pact was using this route at night to bring in recon teams? From a security standpoint it made very good sense. It would not be considered a likely avenue of approach, it traveled straight where they would want to go, there was little light pollution to interfere with driving, it was mostly in a valley so they could use active IR drive lights and not really be broadcasting to the entire world, and most important of all, the entire approach run to the border was screened so NATO troops directly watching the border would not see them coming from miles away.

We provided our findings to the operations officer and he asked me to provide a portion of the situation brief for the OPORD he would be issuing to US first squad who drew the short straw and got selected to go out on ambush that night to see if our hunch was good.

Some 8 hours later, 1st squad moved up to Point Dave to deploy. 3rd squad screened the route ahead so 1st got to travel in the relative comfort of a deuce arriving just before last light. 1st squad moved down the path to the ambush site selected about 2/3rds of the way up the hill and began setting claymores and trip flares. They had heard the briefing but were quite sure it was bullshit since nobody in their right mind would drive up that road in the daylight much less at night on nods but in true soldier form they set up as ordered.

Let me take a moment from the story here to talk about ambushes. For those of you who have never sat in one, it is hard to explain how pointless and dull they are. 90% of ambushes net nothing and even the ones that do generally do not net you anything real quickly. The ambush site is always too rocky, too muddy, too ant infested or something unpleasant. The weather is almost always balls cold and it's generally at least threatening to rain on you. In short, everyone hates ambushes. In normal airsoft, ambushes are great fun since you know that the way the event is scripted or due to the simple mass of people involved someone will most certainly bumble along any old minute now and you'll be having a jolly old time riddling them with bullets but as we have already mentioned, East Wind is not that way so here sat a tired and dejected 1st squad... The day before had seen them chased out of town by a Warpac attack, the night before their raid had been a disaster and now here they are guarding what might as well have been a cliff as far as they were concerned because some pencil neck things trucks can drive here at night...

Camoed up, they crouched in their shell scrapes taking turns watching the road and dozing off. Of course the next great thing about ambushes is that nothing ever happens till it happens and when "it" happens, a whole lot of "it" happens all at once. As it happened this time around, nothing went on for hours on end till one guy had to go pee. He quietly got up and wandered off a bit at the same time, an armadillo came trundling on down the road in typical oblivious armadillo form threatening to set off all the trip wires while at exactly the same time the rumbling drone of a truck engine descending the opposite end of the valley hit everyone's ears.

Pants buttoned back up, dive back into the spot, sticks tossed at the armadillo finally ran it off without it setting off the trip wires. Waiting... Waiting... Intel guy said no signs of dismounted troops but everyone is straining in their NVGs looking for them anyhow. The truck groans as it begins it's ascent up the hill, the blacked out headlights play over the kill zone, it drones on... Blam! Blam! two claymores strike the truck followed by a fusilade of rifle fire and 1st squad tastes it's first success at East Wind 4.

As I said, 90% of ambushes net nothing... The other 10% however generally do and when they do, they are typically a pretty good score. In this case, a nice tasty Soviet troop truck loaded with 2 full sections of troops. In another typical yet ironic twist of fate, the truck was supposed to have stopped and dismounted it's load of infantry at the bottom of the hill but the driver was feeling nice and thought he'd drop everyone at the top of the hill to save them some effort. Had that happened, 1st Squad would have had quite a different fight on their hands.

[QKLee11]

True Battle Procedure with con current activity to get ready (planning) for the Mission

Yeah alot guys who never been in the Military would find it hard to comprehend this, but a week long operation in simulated battle enviroment is realism...good TRG

Plus ppl would see how RECCE/RECON really works, eyes and ears of the unit...RECCEING routes in and out of an objective, setting up RV points for future use, RECCEING objective for attacks, suitable Fire Base, Line of Departure (for the attack), cut of Teams etc...or even just gather intel on the terrain...yeah I want to go to this.

Q

[Aswayze]

You’d think it would take guys a while to really fall into the system but in all reality guys tend to pick up on all of that pretty fast as soon as you put them into a longer duration environment.

“There’s guys over at point x!”

“Let’s just go get em!”

12 hours later they are still at newly secured point X with no food, low water supplies, clouds closing in, a long cold night ahead while they are still dressed in their basic combat uniform.

After they get massacred to a man trying to exfil from point X, they tend to have a greater interest in the entire process.

[Mordarski J.A.]

March 2012 (EW5)....

I attended as a Canadian, my role within the section was straight up "rifleman". More specifically, I was point man on every patrol. My job entailed knowing all the passwords, running passwords, light and number recognition, etc. so that while on patrol if we came in contact with another patrol (or the enemy) we had less chance of a blue-on-blue contact. This worked out pretty well until about day eight when I was tasked with leading a two-man day recce mission across the border fairly deep into enemy territory.

I had to give a warning order, write and conduct an O-Group, as well as provide all of this in writing to my higher command.

Our mission was pretty simple: Get eyes on a known junction and look for signs of enemy movement. We needed to have eyes-on for a minimum of four hours.

I planned the route with input from my number two man, conducted the O-Group, bombed up with the essentials (2L of water, rifle with one mag, binos) and we set off.

We made it to our OP and set up for the required amount of time. Unfortunately, though we saw signs of use on the road, we did not observe a damned thing by way of enemy movement....until just before we left the OP. We could hear a vehicle moving. In the distance, we saw a UAZ lumber out from a wooded area, moving left to right, and deliver a four-man Soviet patrol to a suspected enemy infil point. While observing the enemy, we took note that their weapons were pointed up beside them while they drove, and they appeared to be joking when the dismounted from the vehicle, as though they felt safe and were not expecting contact. Their morale appeared high. The UAZ then returned on the same route, suggesting a level of confidence that they were not being observed.

The enemy infil point looked dangerously close to our original exfil route. Armed with this vital tactical information - previously we (NATO) had recce'd north and west of the enemy infil area, which decisively narrowed the possible locations of the Soviet camp - we made the decision to exfil down an MSR which bordered a wooded area. If we came under contact, one person would hold off the enemy and/or risk capture to allow the other person to safely return to camp and deliver the information to NATO command.

The distance on the map indicated roughly 500m to the road, 1500m down the road, and another 500m into camp. Unfortunately, I made a mistake reading the map and didn't account for the elevation....what was 1500m 'as the crow flies' was closer to about 2500m up and down.

This lesson caused me to plan distances more accurately :P

We made it back to camp tired, but without making contact with the enemy. The information was passed to higher, and then on to the troops deployed to the field. It also changed our (the Canadian contingent) role as we left being recce troops and prepared for a fighting patrol that night.

This particular mission made me step out of my usual role and assume that of a patrol commander, and gave me a greater appreciation for Battle Procedure. If this sounds appealing, EW is definitely for you!

[Aswayze]

A couple of comments on Josh's story there worth pointing out:

#1 Had his patrol been wiped out, that intel would not have made it back. "Dead men don't talk" includes intel too...

#2 That snippet of info cost the Soviets a patrol the following night. Information kills, the rifle is just the end tool.

[QKLee11]

J.A. as a young M/CPL I made a mistake like yours...I got my warning Order pretty quick so when I was doing my Intial Map Recce I didn't take into consideration on my 2nd leg on my "Route In" that there was slight elevation of 500m in dense vegetation (thank you Gagetown, on the west side of Summerhill if memory serves me correct)...it took my Ptl an hour and half to get through it...we did eventually approached the obstacle of dirt track which let me know by doing the initial map recce that I was 400m from Lawfield Corridor and 600m from the house I had to RECCE for an enemy OP...instead of having the mission finished by 0300hrs, my patrol got back to our Ptl Hide at 0530hrs with all intel and not being compromised...big lesson to me though because in Real Combat time is essential and a commodity...future missions and soldiers lives can be the difference in making your timings...after that a "detail" Map Recce (which is part of Battle proceedure when planning a real mission) I made all the time plus going out (if possible) and taking a visual look at the terrain where my ptl might deploy from...

Q

Originally Posted by Mordarski J.A.

March 2012 (EW5)....
I attended as a Canadian, my role within the section was straight up "rifleman". More specifically, I was point man on every patrol. My job entailed knowing all the passwords, running passwords, light and number recognition, etc. so that while on patrol if we came in contact with another patrol (or the enemy) we had less chance of a blue-on-blue contact. This worked out pretty well until about day eight when I was tasked with leading a two-man day recce mission across the border fairly deep into enemy territory.

I had to give a warning order, write and conduct an O-Group, as well as provide all of this in writing to my higher command.

Our mission was pretty simple: Get eyes on a known junction and look for signs of enemy movement. We needed to have eyes-on for a minimum of four hours.

I planned the route with input from my number two man, conducted the O-Group, bombed up with the essentials (2L of water, rifle with one mag, binos) and we set off.

We made it to our OP and set up for the required amount of time. Unfortunately, though we saw signs of use on the road, we did not observe a damned thing by way of enemy movement....until just before we left the OP. We could hear a vehicle moving. In the distance, we saw a UAZ lumber out from a wooded area, moving left to right, and deliver a four-man Soviet patrol to a suspected enemy infil point. While observing the enemy, we took note that their weapons were pointed up beside them while they drove, and they appeared to be joking when the dismounted from the vehicle, as though they felt safe and were not expecting contact. Their morale appeared high. The UAZ then returned on the same route, suggesting a level of confidence that they were not being observed.

The enemy infil point looked dangerously close to our original exfil route. Armed with this vital tactical information - previously we (NATO) had recce'd north and west of the enemy infil area, which decisively narrowed the possible locations of the Soviet camp - we made the decision to exfil down an MSR which bordered a wooded area. If we came under contact, one person would hold off the enemy and/or risk capture to allow the other person to safely return to camp and deliver the information to NATO command.

The distance on the map indicated roughly 500m to the road, 1500m down the road, and another 500m into camp. Unfortunately, I made a mistake reading the map and didn't account for the elevation....what was 1500m 'as the crow flies' was closer to about 2500m up and down.

This lesson caused me to plan distances more accurately :P

We made it back to camp tired, but without making contact with the enemy. The information was passed to higher, and then on to the troops deployed to the field. It also changed our (the Canadian contingent) role as we left being recce troops and prepared for a fighting patrol that night.

This particular mission made me step out of my usual role and assume that of a patrol commander, and gave me a greater appreciation for Battle Procedure. If this sounds appealing, EW is definitely for you!

[Mordarski J.A.]

Available spots are filling up quickly!

NATO

HQ Troops - 4 slots left
US Army - 24 slots left
UK Infantry - 8 slots left
West German Army - 8 Slots Left
Canadian Forces - 2 Slots Left


WARPAC

HQ Element - 3 slots left
Grenztruppen - 10 slots left
NVA Motor Rifles - 15 slots left
Soviet Recon - 13 slots left


If you are interested in coming out to EW, now is the time to get your deposit in! The deposit, $50 USD, secures your spot on the roster and the balance of the game fee is due on February 1 2014 (when registration closes). You can also opt to pay your full game fee instead, if you so choose. Game fees go towards things like food (cooked and MRE's) for the entire event, fuel for the vehicles and generators, batteries to power all the radios, night vision and lighting for tents, etc., etc. Check out the EW website for more information, and the EW forums for more discussion.

[redmond]

Awww man, I have the time available to book it off but i don't have the money for airfare. I'll try and plan to head out to the next one.

[Aswayze]

East Wind is one of those events that takes a little wind up time to make it to effectively. Getting all the kit, getting the time off, getting the travel $, just doesn't tend to happen overnight.

We'll keep the light on for you*. Perhaps we'll see you in 2015!









*Blackout marker light

[Aswayze]

It's been a busy season working on East Wind projects. Any of you who know an East Wind attendee have probably clued in on the fact that to many of us, this is not a once a year event but a year round obsession. At my house for instance, we rarely put in less than 40 hours a week working on East Wind stuff. On dedicated work weekends, it is not unusual for us to get up at 06:00 and work all the way round till 21:00 on projects hit the sack then do it again the next day... We stretch our goals then drive hard to meet them. Anyhow, without further ado here's what's new since July:

NATO Forces: *


6001 at East Wind 6

M151a1 6001 is my personal mutt. *Some of you probably don't know me enough to know what a nut case I can be about gear but this is a good example. * 6001 was at East Wind last year where it did quite well. *I drove it around basically all summer and everything was fine apart from the fact it was getting a little hot on extended high speed runs most likely due to the MASSIVE amount of grass seed that was lodged in the radiator. * I set to work to take care of a few issues related to that and 1.6 cups of mission creep later ended up basically overhauling the entire engine and changing basically every single bearing, joint and seal on the thing. * Should be pretty good now I think... *


M151a1 6007 was almost ready for East Wind 6 but ended up being too much to take on at the time. * Gallion bought it earlier this year and has taken on the overhaul. *His attention to detail and desire to have it be as nice as he can within his limited budget has lead to a very serious structural overhaul with the help of his very capable stepdad Ed. * He's now got the straightest and strongest mutt of all out here. * Just need to pull out and overhaul the front suspension system get the brake system all installed, and wrap up some wiring issues and we'll be ready to rock the block with this one. *


M151a1 6008 belongs to Switzer down in South Texas. *Over Thanksgiving weekend Curfman, Z, and I made a run down to help Switzer get the restore of this one kicked off. *After plenty of bodly welding getting everything structurally sound, Z got a coat of MERDC 4 color temperate Europe paint on it. *Still have some work to do on this guy but it shouldn't take all that much to have it up and rolling along. *


M35A2 6015 got a set of new fancy radial tires. * These are a MASSIVE improve for the deuces and doa *great deal to reduce drive fatigue on long convoys down and back from East Wind. *


M35a2 6019 is already converted to single rear wheel configuration. *David should have the 11.00-20 radials rounded up for it pretty soon then it too will be a radial truck.


M151A2 6021 got all of it's PMCS work done and it is currently deployed to D-Day ready for East Wind 7. *


m151a1 6022, long the red headed step child, has a new owner now in David who is hard at work on the pieces he is able to get hauled back to KC to work on. * Shorty, as soon as either 6037 or 6007 clears out, 6022 will be in the depot getting some major body overhaul work done. *We may yet see this one in time for East Wind 7. *


M35A2 6025 got an M66 gun ring installed on it. *Now we can finally keep those pesky Hinds at bay. *


M151A2 6033 got all finished up earlier this summer and caught a ride out west to Ft. Riley on the back of 6015.


At the Soldier Fort Stagg quickly set to work proving that normal cars are for squares. *6033 has been racking up the miles out there as both a daily driver as well as roaring all over the ranges amazing Stagg and others out there with what an M151A2 can do. *


M718 6037, our front line ambulance, is nearing completion. *Here Curfman shows off the new (old) ambulance top. *


The biggest stumbling block for this guy was it's transmission. * It had a bad input shaft bearing which has now been replaced. *Just waiting on a seal kit and we'll have it all together and ready to stick back in. *


M882 #707 just joined the family. *It's an ex-Missouri National Guard radio truck that was bought by Ready for East Wind duty. * As is usually the case with the M880 series, it needs remarkably little work to get into good order and should be all set to go fairly quickly. *


Up north in sun baked blistering sands of of southern Manitoba, Rob Bye set to work building a pair of Carl Gustav launchers for our Canadian contingent.



Down south in the frozen pine forests of South Louisiana Mercy set to work getting resin/rubber SA-80 bayonets cast for our UK guys. * You cannot be commonwealth infantry without bayonets you know!

Meanwhile over on Warpac: *


Stagg's Gaz-69M has been carted up to Wamego for service work. *This one really is in pretty decent shape so it ought to turn around really fast. *


In keeping with the general trend to containerise more in order to reduce set up times. *The Warpac has put together a new containerized supply shelter.


Warpac troops really got to work hard on drive train maintenance for their smaller vehicles this year. *For once, in a long time, it is looking like we may successfully deploy ALL of the Warpac vehicles next year! * Good work guys. *


The BTR-40 spun a rod at East Wind 6 and has, over the summer and fall, been getting it's engine overhauled. *Here Art pressure washes out the engine bay prior to it getting a new coat of paint. *





Trucker and I took a weekend and did some long haul trucking pulling the Robur LO-2002 from DDAP down to Mobile Alabama for Doorman to begin overhauling. *Lots of little stuff to do on this one but none too crazy. *Besides, I think Doorman will probably be able to fund the entire overhaul by selling off the acorns that were stashed in it by pack rats over the years. *




The SPW-152 is even moving along. * It's engine and transmission are installed. *The custom drive shaft is being built right now that goes between the transmission and the transfer case. * Once that's on there, it will move under it's own power. *We still need to get some of the this and that stuff taken care of like plumbing in the cooling system, adding some wiring and installing an air compressor for the air brakes but regardless, this big guy is well on it's way. *


East Wind is a very recon oriented event. *The two sides literally get ZERO intel from admin and have to rely on their own assets to determine what is going on in the field. * That puts a lot of value on good optics. *Good fortune smiled upon our East Germans as a supplier here in the states put the VERY high quality original East German Zeiss binoculars on sale for $90 a pair (they are usually closer to $300) *Many of our East German sprung into action scarfing them up. * These binos should help a great deal in the field at East Wind 7 and beyond. *


Not to be outdone by last years introduction of the tripod mounted MG-3 by the West Germans Coop out in Jersey has been getting a PKM set up for tripod operation as well. *In normal airsoft a tripod mounted medium machine gun is not match for a little fat kid with an MP5 and a high cap but when you start running 24/7, a medium machine gun quickly proves it value in the defense since you can preplan your fires and effectively support nearby positions that you cannot even see.

[QKLee11]

looks good

[Aswayze]

Thank you, we've been hard at work to get where we are.

[Juic3]

One day ill attend East Wind ...

[redmond]

How many people attended EastWind in 2013? I'm just curious, some of my friends were asking, and I have no idea/can't find that information. Thank you.

**edit**

Nevermind, i managed to find something close on your forums.

[Aswayze]

For the sake of answering for everone else. We hit a total of about 80 for 2013, just shy of 100 the year before. This year we have 57 sign ups already and have not yet hit the "last minute rush" when many sign up so I'll wager will be close to 100 again.

We are not a "numbers" event. We do not want to be. I have to fully support every single attendee with support equipment, gear, food, etc etc etc so just piling on the numbers only dilutes the overall experience for everyone. Over the summer, we generally assess the equipment situation and determine what our maximum capacity by side is and make a build to that reflects what our drop dead max attendees number is. In the case of this year, NATO for instance has a max of 65. The Canadian Forces unit within the NATO group has a max of 12 slots with only two remaining open. We tend to have more U.S. Army gear (big surprise) so the U.S. Army has a total of 27 slots with 20 remaining open right now.